The sun beat down on the dunes as Jamie climbed the hill, his leather shoes slipping on the sand. The ocean stretched wide and restless beyond the rise, its breakers pounding the shore like a warning drum.

He looked back. Halfway up the slope, his cousin Thomas shaded his eyes.

“You sure about this?” Thomas called. “She’ll tan your hide if you’re seen down there.”

Jamie shrugged and kept walking. “Then don’t follow me.”

At seventeen, Jamie knew how to gut fish, patch sails, and plow straight rows—but none of it mattered when the sea called him. Not just for clamming or wading. He wanted to go out beyond the breakers, beyond the harbor, and see what lay past the edge of the world.

But in his tiny New England village, sailors were feared and the ocean was cursed.

“You weren’t born to master the sea,” his grandmother had warned him the night before. “It doesn’t want you. It will swallow you.”

Most folks in town agreed. No one had left the harbor in nearly a generation. Those who did never came back. They called the sea a traitor—calm one day, cruel the next. It had a hundred names: Ghostwater, Widow’s Mirror, Devil’s Lane.

Jamie didn’t believe in curses. He believed in wind and tides and ships built strong.

Still, he’d promised his grandmother he would speak to someone before doing anything foolish.

So he made his way to the bluff where the village’s oldest fisherman lived—an odd, retired sailor named Cole who hadn’t set foot on a ship in over twenty years. Some said he’d survived a wreck. Others whispered he talked to spirits in the fog.

Jamie found him as expected, sitting on a worn stool outside his crooked shack, mending a net with one good hand. His other sleeve hung empty.

“I figured you’d come,” Cole said without looking up.

Jamie hesitated, then dropped to sit on an overturned barrel. “You sailed beyond the inlet, didn’t you?”

Cole nodded once.

“Then tell me why no one else does.”

Cole squinted at the sea. “Because they’re afraid of it. And fear, boy, makes a tight collar. The tide shifts, the clouds thicken, and they think it’s punishment for pride.”

“But it isn’t, is it?” Jamie asked. “You don’t think the ocean is cursed.”

Cole’s mouth twitched. “The ocean doesn’t care about you, one way or the other. It’s not cursed—but it is wild. You go out there thinking it owes you kindness, and you won’t come back.”

Jamie folded his arms. “I still want to learn. Not to chase legends. Just to sail. To know it.”

Cole leaned back, the net forgotten in his lap. “Then be here tomorrow at dawn. I have a boat that still floats.”

The next morning, they pushed off under a pale yellow sky. The boat was simple—sturdy boards and patched sails. Jamie took the tiller while Cole explained the rhythm of wind and water, how to read clouds and know the moods of the tide.

Waves slapped the hull. The sea was louder, stronger than it seemed from the shore.

“Still think it’s friendly?” Cole asked.

Jamie shook his head. “But it’s not my enemy either.”

They reached the edge of the inlet by noon. The open ocean lay beyond, flat and vast.

Cole pointed to the horizon. “That way lies danger. But also wonder.”

They turned back before the wind shifted. By evening, the shore welcomed them with calm.

Later, Jamie stood again on the hill above the breakers. The gulls wheeled overhead. The surf hissed along the sand. He wasn’t afraid.

Thomas joined him, breathless. “Did he take you out?”

Jamie nodded. “Not far. But far enough.”

“You’re not done, are you?”

Jamie smiled. “No. I’ve only just started.”

_{“The Edge of the Breakers” by Nina D. Smith. Published by Bright Bunny Books © 2025. Retelling of “The Seven Brothers of the Sun” from The Windy Hill by Cornelia Meigs, originally published in 1922.}

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“The Edge of the Breakers” is best suited for middle and high school students in grades 7–10 who enjoy historical fiction, coming-of-age themes, and adventurous characters challenging tradition.